


wildflowers painted by the lake

by bluejayblueskies



Series: TMA Fantasy Week [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (but the fantasy equivalent), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives), Fairy Tale Elements, First Meetings, Healer Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Legends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 11:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30138996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejayblueskies/pseuds/bluejayblueskies
Summary: Jon's heard the legend before, of course, of the fog that comes out at night in the Blackwood Forest and consumes those it touches, never to be seen again. But putting so much stock in a local legend, in what is essentially achild’s tale, is ridiculous, and Jon will have no part of it.There has almost certainly never been a man called Blackwood living in this forest..In which Jon is skeptical, Martin is trapped within the fog, and there's more truth in local legends than you'd think.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: TMA Fantasy Week [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208423
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	wildflowers painted by the lake

**Author's Note:**

> written for tma fantasy week for the prompt: legend
> 
> cw for brief mentions of death and (vaguely) chronic illness

Jon’s foot slips on a tree root, and he nearly falls before he manages to catch himself on a tree, the rough bark cutting into the palm of his hand. He mutters a curse and checks to make sure he hasn’t dropped any items from his basket. The mushrooms and herbs seem to be in order, and Jon carefully tucks a delicate white flower back into place before starting forward again.

That’s what he gets for foraging at night, he supposes. But the flowers he’s looking for bloom in a _very_ specific time frame, and if he doesn’t pick them then, they’ll lose their medicinal quality. So, Jon grits his teeth and slows his pace slightly, taking more care with where he places his feet lest he end up _actually_ hurting himself or—gods forbid—losing some of his supplies. He _needs_ those flowers; most of his medicines rely on the little purple blossoms clustered near the shore of the lake, and he’s the only one who makes them. So, he spends most of his nights in the woods and most of his days fighting off exhaustion. The bags under his eyes have reached rather impressive proportions.

It’s not his fault everyone else is too scared to venture into the woods at night. Putting so much stock in a local legend, in what is essentially a _child’s tale,_ is ridiculous, and Jon will have no part of it.

He’s heard the legend before, of course, so many times that the words have begun to grate on his ears like sandpaper. According to _legend,_ there had once been a man who lived in the very center of the forest. He lived alone, isolated and hidden away in the trees, with only the flora and fauna for company. But it had never bothered him, and he had spent his time painting the forest in yellows and purples and blues, spreading wildflowers all the way to the edges of the wood and carving paths in the earth for creeks and streams to flow. (This was the part that annoyed Jon the most; a man living alone in the woods he could believe, but _that?_ Ridiculous.)

The man had grown comfortable being alone. He’d loved it. And then, one day, another came to the center of the wood, looking to build a home there. The stranger stepped on the flowers the man had carefully cultivated and scared away the birds and disrupted the gentle silence of the trees and the leaves with boisterous words. So, from within the forest, the man summoned a great fog, thick and heavy as it rolled over the ground and through the trees, and swallowed the stranger whole. And then the man was alone again. 

Something something legend says he still lives in the woods, something something only comes out at night, something something people sometimes see fog peeking through the trees when they get too close, _whatever._ It’s all nonsense. Jon _knows_ it is, because he’s been visiting the forest at night for _months_ and he’s never seen anything but a few startled rabbits and a plethora of moths.

They’d even _named_ the place after him. Blackwood Forest. Jon had always disliked the name—it felt rather repetitive for it to contain both _wood_ and _forest_ , and there had almost certainly _never_ been a man called Blackwood living in this forest.

Jon is crouched by the lake, halfway through collecting that night’s quota of flowers, when he realizes with a start that he can’t see his hands clearly anymore. They’re hazy before him, like he’s viewing them through warped glass, and when he looks up and over the lake, he’s met with only grey, stagnant and flat and unmoving as it surrounds him.

Jon stands, gripping his basket tightly. He can barely see its contents; they’re smudged by the fog, turned greyscale and desaturated. His own skin looks sickly, like all the color has been drawn out of it.

“Hello?” he says, his voice too-loud in the stillness that surrounds him, and if it shakes a bit he pretends it doesn’t because he’s _not_ scared. There’s _no_ ghostly specter of a man planning to trap him in fog forever. It’s a temperate night; fog is to be expected. There’s nothing supernatural about a bit of fog.

Then, a voice drifts out of the fog, and Jon nearly drops his basket in shock.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” it says. The words reverberate through the fog, echoing over and over again until they trail away into nothing.

_What?_ Indignance wipes away Jon’s surprise in the span of a breath, and he snaps back, “I can go where I very well please, _thank you._ I’ve been coming here for months, and I’m not going to stop just because _you_ tell me to.”

Gods, he’s talking to _fog_. This is a new low for him.

There’s a moment of silence before Jon swears he hears the fog _sigh._ It’s almost absurd enough to make him laugh. “Still, you… you should leave.”

Jon scoffs and decides to entertain, just for a moment, the notion that he’s speaking to the man everyone’s convinced is haunting these woods. “What, can’t you just threaten to steal me away? To hold me captive in the fog forever? Apparently, it’s what you do.”

It’s quiet for a long while—long enough that Jon begins to shift impatiently and consider how long it might take him to navigate out of the forest without being able to see the route in front of him. Then, so quietly Jon can barely hear it, the voice says, “It’s not.”

If Jon didn’t know any better, he’d think that whatever’s hiding in the fog sounds _sad._ “What?”

The fog clusters a bit heavier around Jon, tickling at his skin and leaving behind a fine mist of water, before retreating suddenly, leaving the ground and the trees bare around him, illuminated by the moon above. And, not five feet away, stands a man, his edges blurred and every part of him an icy white, from the curls that spill down his shoulders to his skin to the cloak he has wrapped tightly around him (though, when Jon looks closer, he thinks that might actually be fog, thick and clinging to the man’s skin). The man is looking at a point just behind Jon’s shoulder, avoiding his eyes. “It’s _not_ ,” he repeats. “I- I don’t want to hurt anyone. I _haven’t_ hurt anyone.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “Who’s there to hurt? Nobody comes here anymore.”

Well. Jon still doesn’t believe in legends, but this is hardly a legend anymore, is it, with the man in question stood there in front of him? A bit warier, Jon says, “So then… what do you want?”

The man looks at Jon then— _really_ looks at him—and a shiver runs through Jon’s body like he’s just stuck his hand in ice water. “I… I don’t really know?” He hugs his cloak tighter to him, the fog shifting as he does so, and continues, “I… I suppose we could… we could talk?”

“Talk,” Jon repeats flatly. “I hardly see why the _fog_ was necessary, then.”

A few tendrils of fog snake out from the man, reaching toward Jon before the man seems to notice and they retreat back into the fabric of his cloak. More sharply than Jon expects, the man says, “I’m a _bit_ out of practice, okay? Like, a few _decades_ out of practice. I think I’m allowed a bit of leeway.”

Maybe Jon’s imagining things, but he thinks, just for a moment, that he sees a flash of color—a wisp of tawny brown lacing through the man’s hair. When he blinks, though, it’s vanished, and so he puts it out of mind. “And what did you want to talk _about?_ ”

The man pauses at that, wrings his hands together. “Anything?” he says finally with a small shrug. “Like, er… what do you use the viccolas for?”

“The _what?_ ”

The man gestures toward Jon’s basket. “The viccolas? They’re one of my favorite flowers here—a shame they only bloom at night, really—and I used to use them in my tea, to- to help with the pain. I, er. I used to be quite ill before I…” The man trails off and makes a small, distressed noise.

“Died?” Jon suggests helpfully.

“What?” The man’s head snaps up to look at him, eyes wide with surprise, and _there it is again_ —that small flash of color, just for a moment, this time along the side of the man’s face, a light peach almost indistinguishable from the pale white surrounding it but _there_ all the same. “No, I- I’m not a _ghost!_ Why- why would you think that?”

“To be fair, you do look like one.”

The man makes a frustrated noise. “I- I _suppose,_ but that’s- that’s not what happened! I’m still _alive,_ I’m just not—”

The man cuts off again, sharper this time. When he speaks again, his voice is choked, as if with tears. “I’m just not _human_ anymore, I don’t think.”

Well, Jon could have told him that much. It’s really rather obvious. Still, he doesn’t think that would be well received. So, instead, he says, “I use the flowers for medicines. Nobody else comes into these woods at night, but I’ve never been afraid of- well, of _you_ , I suppose.”

He wants to ask the man if he’d created the flowers. If he’d painted them by the lake like the legends say. But that would be ridiculous, and Jon’s not keen on indulging his own childish sense of curiosity.

“Oh,” the man says quietly. “So, then, you… you’ll keep coming back for them?”

Jon frowns. “Yes, of course. Some of the people I help would die without the medicine I give them.” His expression turns wary again. “So I would suggest you not try to stop me.”

“No, no, of course not,” the man says quickly, looking rather horrified at the thought. Which does put Jon’s mind at peace a little. “I… I suppose I just thought that maybe we- we could talk again? Er, whenever you come back, that is.” He lets out a small, bitten-off laugh. “I promise I won’t surround you with fog this time?”

“Yes, that would be preferable.”

The man’s eyes brighten at that, his irises lit briefly with a flash of baby blue. “Is- is that a yes?”

He looks so _excited_ at the prospect of another conversation with Jon—one that will surely feel just as much like pulling teeth as this one, though that could just be Jon’s poor interpersonal skills. And unlike what _some_ people might think, Jon is not heartless. Besides, he can’t deny that he’s curious about the man who lives at the center of the Blackwood Forest.

“All right,” Jon says with a small nod. “I’ll be back this time next week.”

The lips that smile back at him are rosy red. “G- great! Er, sorry, I- I realize I never actually asked… what’s your name?”

After a pause during which Jon briefly entertains the notion of giving out a false name, he says, “Jon. You can call me Jon.”

“Jon,” the man says, as if testing its weight upon his tongue. “I’m- I’m Martin. Er, Martin Blackwood.”

_Right. A bit of truth in the legends after all, then._

Jon leaves with his flowers, and Martin fades back into the fog that hangs over the lake’s surface. And when Jon returns the next week, they talk. And the next, and the next, until it becomes routine. Until it becomes something Jon looks forward to. Until he spends most nights in the woods, sat next to the lake and unraveling every facet of a man whose life is so much more than has been spelled out on paper.

And when the flashes of color begin to resolve into vibrant skin and hair and eyes and Martin begins to cry, Jon wraps his arms around a man who’s become solid once more and finds him warm.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos make my day! if you liked what you read, let me know 💛
> 
> find me on tumblr [@bluejayblueskies](https://bluejayblueskies.tumblr.com/)


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